Sail For Freedom: Ship Raises Funds For Miss Liberty

July 11, 1985|By Robert Kazel, Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH — The ship flies an American flag, but the 64-foot-long Red Lion brings to life the days of the Spanish empire in the New World, when pirates closed in on merchant ships to demand gold and wine or the lives of all aboard.

The Red Lion`s newest port-of-call is the Palm Harbor Marina.

The 45-ton ship is actually a half-scale replica of the original ship, which in 1597 was built 4,600 miles away in Holland to carry goods to Baltic ports.

``That`s real fine work,`` said its captain, Gary Welsh , admiring the intricately crafted ropes on the side of the ship. The details of the ship, from the sails to the wood to the paint on the deck, match the original. ``Not being a sailor you wouldn`t appreciate this. It`s 100 percent perfect.``

The ship, with a crew of five, is on a journey called Sail for Freedom that began in Chicago in October 1984. It has already moored at Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Norfolk, Charleston and cities on Florida`s coast.

Along the way, the crew is raising funds for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty by selling T-shirts.

The Red Lion will remain in West Palm Beach until spring, with trips to Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Tampa likely. It will sail to New York City in time for the statue rededication ceremonies on July 4. While in West Palm Beach, it is available to businesses for promotional purposes or to groups looking for an unusual outing or party. The cost is $1,500 a day, said Arnie Gemino, president of Orient Express Yacht and Ship Inc., which is arranging charters from its office at the marina.

The ship was the dream of an unlikely commodore, a 44-year-old Ozark Air Lines pilot from Itasca, Ill., named William J. Dotter.

One day in 1969, Dotter was building a toy model of a bark -- a sailing ship with two square-rigged masts and one mast rigged fore-and-aft.

He couldn`t do it. There were just too many pieces and too few instructions. Rather than toss the model aside, he wrote to the model manfacturer in Germany for more details on the bark, the Red Lion.

For five years he gathered background on the ship in libraries. He learned it was built in Holland in 1597 and carried grain, spices, wine, salt and lumber. An armed ship, it was bought by a city in East Prussia to guard a port in 1602, and six years later it sailed to Lisbon, Portugal, to deliver lumber. It might have carried wine to Brazil in 1640, but Dotter isn`t sure. He also doesn`t know what finally became of the ship.

For Dotter, the pages of history mingled with the possibility of financial return.

``I just became intrigued with actually building and planning the ship,`` Dotter said. ``I wanted to make a business of it and use it commercially, but mainly it was important that the public have an opportunity to see and touch a relic of the past. I call it an endangered species.`` He said the ship was almost identical to the Mayflower.

In 1971 Dotter met with Ferdinand Nimphius, a prominent Wisconsin shipbuilder to plan the ship. Construction started in 1973 and cost more than $1 million. It was financed by Dotter`s savings and by investments in his corporation, Red Lion, Inc. In April 1983 the Red Lion made its maiden voyage out of Sheboygan, Wis.

Dotter has grand plans for his brainchild. After it leaves New York next summer, he wants it to sail on to France, where the crew will present a 2- foot-tall carving of the Statue of Liberty to the French government. The voyage will take about 40 days, he said. Then he wants the ship to sail throughout Europe, including the Netherlands, for eight months. He still needs a corporate backer for that voyage.

People have responded to the ship with amazement and delight, Dotter said.

Later this summer, he added, he wants to begin short public tours of the ship.

``It`s something the public, and not only kids but adults and the elderly, really enjoy,`` Dotter said. ``It`s a masterpiece. It`s sort of like going back in time for them.``

As it sails, the ship draws a lot of attention from passing yachters, said Welsh, the captain.

``Everybody`s gawking at it all the time,`` he said. ``She`s quite an attraction, really.

``There`s a romantic lure of the sea that lives in most people,`` Welsh said.

``I find that too, with myself,`` said Welsh, 39, who studied art history at Rutgers University in New Jersey and once taught high school history. ``(Now) I can`t do anything else but work on ships. Nothing else quite rings the bell.``